Block Reference
Documentation for each block type in the Ladder Script evaluation engine
Signature Family — 0x0001
Signature blocks verify cryptographic signatures against committed public keys. The foundation of UTXO authorization.
Timelock Family — 0x0100
Temporal constraints on spending — relative to confirmation (CSV) or absolute block height / timestamp (CLTV).
Hash Family — 0x0200
Hash preimage verification.
Covenant Family — 0x0300
Enforce constraints on how a UTXO can be spent by inspecting the spending transaction. No direct Tapscript equivalent.
Recursion Family — 0x0400
Self-referencing covenants — outputs that enforce spending back into the same or modified covenant structure.
Anchor Family — 0x0500
Commit to external state references — channel IDs, pool IDs, reserve requirements, oracle attestations, tamper-evident seals.
PLC Family — 0x0600
Industrial automation primitives for Bitcoin script. Hysteresis, timers, latches, counters, comparators, sequencers, rate limiters.
Compound Family — 0x0700
Common multi-block patterns collapsed into single blocks, reducing wire overhead.
Governance Family — 0x0800
Transaction-level constraints with no Tapscript equivalent. Inspect structure, weight, I/O counts, value ratios.
Legacy Family — 0x0900
Wraps Bitcoin's original transaction types as typed Ladder Script blocks. Same spending semantics, all fields typed. Closes inscription and data-embedding vectors.
Compact Encodings
Wire format optimisations using n_blocks == 0 sentinel within a rung. Not counted as separate block types.